Acer Budget C720 Chromebook Slims Down and Gets Intel Haswell Upgrade

It seems like the Chromebook race is heating up as of late. HP just unveiled a couple of new ones, and now Acer has the new C720, following up on the old C710. It looks to be every bit as competitive in specs, and even more so in price.

The Acer C720 has an 11.6” 1366 x 768 resolution display, and is 2.76 pounds and .75” thick – 30 percent thinner than the C710. This one also gets a big processor upgrade, to an Intel Haswell Celeron processor – yes, it’s Celeron, but these things have to stay cheap somehow. You can also expect 4 GB of DDR3L RAM and a 16 GB SSD for storage.

The good thing about going to Haswell is battery life. The C720 is slated to get 8.5 hours of life on a full charge, and it boots up very fast (in seven seconds), thanks also in part to that 16 GB SSD. Also on the C720 is an HD webcam, a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, HDMI out, and an SD card reader.

The latest Chrome OS machine is available for pre-order now from Amazon and Best Buy. It’s yours for $250, which is a pretty great price, even where Chromebooks are concerned. The Acer C720 is scheduled to ship a few weeks from now.